The trials. The tribulations. The blood, sweat and beers of fiction writing

Monday, 28 January 2013

PICTURE THIS

It's important to evoke your fiction visually if you can - scenes, characters, objects - in order to breathe life into your words, for them to resonate fully and come off the page. Some people are able to do this in their heads, but I like to keep a portfolio of images that have inspired a story or novel, something I can return to when I need reminding of the central themes / motifs / objective correlatives I had in mind at the fiction's genesis. A good way of doing this is Pinterest, where you can pin images to a board you've created, which you can then share or keep private. Here's the one I did for my forthcoming novel. And anotherfor the work-in-progress. Much like a film director uses a storyboard, it can help focus your mind without using the currency you'll be sick of some days: words.

3 comments:

I agree so strongly with this. I've always collected images for this purpose, and had a go at creating graphic novel style storyboards, but my artistic skills (or lack thereof) have been a barrier. Using Pinterest is a stroke of genius - I've always just saved them in cluttered folders. Pinterest. Of course!

This is great advice. It can really help with describing scenes, and it's much easier to describe something you see as opposed to making something up. In my own novel, a lot of my scenes were in Louisiana, where I live. So I was able to pull from that.

About

An award-winning writer living in south-west England, my short story collection, The Method, won the inaugural Scott Prize in 2010 and, in 2011, the Edge Hill Readers' Prize. Debut novel, What Lies Within, published by Headline. That Dark Remembered Day due in 2014. Lectures in Creative Writing and represented by Ed Victor. More here.

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REVIEWS OF MY WRITING

'As unsettling as it is minutely imagined, this striking debut novel will give serious pause for thought to anyone considering downsizing for a cosy life in the countryside.'Patrick Gale

'Taut and compelling, you won't just read this book, you'll devour it.'Alex Preston

'Much more than crime fiction, 'What Lies Within' is unique not just for its sharp psychological insights, but for the moral engine that drives the plot: a deep respect for, and anger on behalf of, women.'Melissa Harrison'A finely achieved work, provocative and brave.'Graham Mort'A powerful and unsettling book.'Jen Campbell

‘Gothic wit and cracking dialogue grounded in the author's genuine sympathy for his characters. A seriously gifted debut.'Mike McCormack

‘Talent is here.’Gerard Donovan

‘These stories are sensational. Beautifully written, impeccably timed. Vowler’s characters live with heightened sensitivity, as if in the wake of some disaster. Then you realise that they are, but then that we all are. Where an object, a gesture, a memory, takes on painful, beautiful resonance, as it should be, all the time.’Luke Kennard

'The Method is stunning. Writing doesn't get better.'Nicola Morgan

‘Vowler's characters hurtle merrily towards self-annihilation so that we don't have to. The kind of book you read in tongue-sticking-out tension, your patience rewarded as he takes turn after salacious turn.’Wena Poon

‘You explore a difficult subject with considerable imagination. From the opening quotes it is intriguing and you have been clever in capturing and retaining the reader’s attention.’Michael Barnard

'Emotionally powerful.'Susie Maguire

'I admired the sheer style of the writing, as well as the wryness and authority of the narrative voice. I kept reading out of admiration for the prose.'Will Atkins

'Some of the best comic writing I've read.'Patrick Holland

'A writer of extraordinary talent and perception.'Jane Smith

‘Vowler is not afraid to be new, to be dangerous with it and flaunt his talent. Composed beautifully and saturated with insight and compassion.’The Short Review

Sagacity

Write a little each day, without hope and without despair.

'The first draft of anything is shit.' Hemingway

'Writing a book is like a long bout of painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if not driven by some demon.' Orwell

'The novelist’s job is to say what other people won’t say, and take the consequences.' Gerard Donovan

Thinking about writing is not writing. Talking about writing is not writing. Blogging about writing is not writing. Only writing is writing.